Bamboo spars

Well, over this last week my bamboo 'order' started trickling in a piece at a time. I asked one of my friends here in Mibu, whose name is Sesi, who's wanting to make a little cash, to bring me some variations of bamboo so I can dry it and see what's going to work best for my spars. All the bamboo he brought was of the variety they call 'bovat' here; a very thick walled type of bamboo that when dry is extremely strong. I also had him bring a couple pieces of straight solid timber as well just to be sure. What has been brought up so far looks like it's going to do the trick! I think I'm going to use the solid timber for the stub mast. Then for my luff spar and boom I'll use bamboo. Reason for using the solid timber for the stub mast is because of future considerations. Should I ever have to replace it, I think trying to find an exact matching piece of bamboo would be very difficult. But working a solid piece of timber to fit the mast step is easier. I also think the forces on around the mast step might risk splitting bamboo.
Anyway, everything is quite straight. There are a couple minor bends in the bamboo. So I am experimenting (see pic with red straps). I am bending the bamboo just a little bit beyond the shape I want it to be, hoping that once dry in a couple months, it will maintain that form. If not, the bends are minor enough that it's no big deal. I had to do this with two of the pieces that were brought up. One of the other pieces was cut a couple months ago and submerged in a fish pond for a couple weeks. Sesi then dried it before bringing it up. It's quite a bit bigger than the specified size. But it is soooo light weight and much stronger than the solid wood piece that was brought up of equal diameter!
I experimented on a couple pieces with curing over a fire. I wasn't too pleased with the results... at least on this kind of bamboo. It took a really long time just to do one little section and the look wasn't nice. I think maybe the thickness of the walls makes it tougher to do this on. I originally tried it over my gas grill, but it just wasn't doing the trick so we made a quick bonfire and used that. But like I said, just wasn't happy with the results. Maybe I was doing things wrong? I think from here on out I'm going to stand the stuff up to dry and fill the topmost segment with some potent bug spray which is supposed to then seep down through the circulatory system before it dries.
As far as a final coating, I'm going to have to settle for some light sanding and varnishing. I tested this out over a month ago on a scrap piece. gave the surface a light sanding, then cleaned it with acetone, then applied a single coat of varnish. After it dried, I just left it out on the grass in the rain and sun. There's not a bit of it so far that is coming off. That little section of bamboo is looking very good actually.
I would appreciate all the thoughts and advice on using bamboo as I can get. I've had some great comments in the past about fire curing. Not sure why that's not working well for me.